Bill Richardson is clearly the best qualified Dem candidate for president, unless Al Gore decides to run. There are a couple of other folks I'd probably prefer to Ms. Clinton. That being said, the likelihood is great that she will be the Dem nominee, and it will behoove all of us to support her and encourage all of our contacts to support her. Given the realities of American politics, Ms. Clinton, for all her flaws, is greatly to be preferred to anyone the Repugs might nominate, and would probably be a fine president, as presidents go. So take your shots, but have the self-respect to admit they are cheap, self-serving, and, in the end, detrimental to our public debate and perhaps to our chances to get the country turned around, if it's not too late already.
The condescension just drips, doesn't it? I don't know whether the commenter, Acorvid, in this thread is one of those vigilante authoritarian ankle-biters or is a party apparatchik out laying down the law to the little people. The playbook for both is the same, however: a declaration of faith, followed by crackpot realism and capped with an incoherent, short'n'curly-yanking emotional appeal. How would an inappropriate and false admission of cheapness help anyone's self-respect? Moreover, what was cheap about posting on Senator Clinton's enviro-hypocrisy? How is exposing that hypocrisy detrimental to our public debate? Would giving a corrupt and dishonest politican a pass really do anything to help "turn the country around"? Why would anyone feel an obligation to support her, given her easily documented contempt for liberal values? She'd only be be good as a jingoist country club candidate. There's not (here it comes now, heads up people) a dime's worth of difference between Acorvid's rhetorical style and that of any of the less vituperative wingnuts. He's boxed himself into a rhetorical corner. Even if Hillary Clinton were worth supporting, the means he's using are going to offend anyone with some self-respect. This, for the Democrats, is the product of slamming the Overton Window on their sensitive parts one too many times. For the wingnuts, it's an effective means of moving the "debate" further into lock down territory. What kind of fool gives the game away so easily?
Comments (10)
I like the whole fawning, weaselly tone of the piece. If this guy isn't a professional bootlicker, he's a talented amateur.
Posted by AlanSmithee | May 26, 2007 3:52 PM
Posted on May 26, 2007 15:52
The inability to learn from decades of disastrous outcomes, which assumes he's actually a liberal of some kind, is pretty good too.
Come for the catastrophe! Stay for the bootlicking!
There's a campaign slogan in that, I think.
Posted by Scruggs | May 26, 2007 4:54 PM
Posted on May 26, 2007 16:54
Forgot to be explicit about the major problem with guys like him. They try to make the wingnut "emotional logic" and magical thinking mainstream and of benefit to the Democrats. From an amoral, utilitarian point of view, that's still a terrible idea. The advertising copy for a product can't contradict the branding too much or people will lose enthusiasm. It can't partake too much of the competition's product or the target demographic will become confused and choose the competition. The commodity he's pitching relies on looking good by comparison, which is an iffy business if the competition bumps up quality a notch. They can't be relied on to always offer an incoherent chimp and an evil cyborg.
This is the kind of trap created by overly "clever" merit scholar types, who can recite all the details of a strategy from memory and never have any idea why it succeeds or fails.
Posted by Scruggs | May 26, 2007 8:22 PM
Posted on May 26, 2007 20:22
re read each one of the following
three times :
".... probably be a fine president, as presidents go.."
note the hip cynicism of "as presidents go "
"So take your shots, but have the self-respect to admit they are cheap, self-serving
and, in the end, detrimental to our public debate..."
"self respect to admit "
i can't even follow this
have "the self respect"
to admit
you're taking a cheap shot
and a
"....self serving "
cheap shot at that
am I
gratifying my moral vanity at the expense
of the possible ???
" and perhaps to our chances to get the country turned around, if it's not too late already"
the road to
turn
around
leads thru st hill ???
and then we get
the maybe it's
"too late"
gig
what a performance
rampant
confected
" core values "
behold
the slime grin of the paid plugger
Posted by op | May 26, 2007 9:57 PM
Posted on May 26, 2007 21:57
You think so, Owen? Smithee suspected as much too. The Democratic farm team does replicate in academia, which is where you find the kind of arch nihilist construction he uses. But the vigilantes do imitate them pretty well. The same smug "skill set" is useful for the bootlicking/sanctimony of corporate office politics. I'm starting to think Bernay's alchemy has been refined to a science of career safety through auto-cretinization. The show is not for the people they address directly, but for the audience measuring everyone up.
Posted by Scruggs | May 26, 2007 10:11 PM
Posted on May 26, 2007 22:11
Go read Maia's latest thread at Alas A Blog. It is to weep. Mythago, one of my least favorite posters in the entire universe, is not happy that a dirty foreigner from NZ dares to express skepticism about the value of America's political system. Straight out of a Birch Society playbook. When anyone calls you on the pile of shit your party has become, play the jingoist card and patronize, patronize, patronize.
It's like a fucking zombie movie. Right-wingers infiltrate the party and infect the rank-and-file, who become right-wingers themselves in their zeal to justify their inexplicable attachment to a bunch of warmongering, money grubbing assholes.
I'm going to scream now.
Posted by ms_xeno | May 27, 2007 1:31 AM
Posted on May 27, 2007 01:31
"Straight out of a Birch Society playbook"
Yeah, that's what I'm getting at. Participating in an institutional system past the point it can be redeemed, fixed or saved turns people into jingos and bigots. The same people will tell you it's okay to be "ethnic" if they think that will get them points towards a DLC tote bag. After a while, they become hopeless -- indistuinguishable from wingnuts, except for the little blue donkeys sewn onto their thongs.
Posted by Scruggs | May 27, 2007 2:16 AM
Posted on May 27, 2007 02:16
I don't know about the rest of you folks, but the very opening sentence:
Bill Richardson is clearly the best qualified Dem candidate for president, unless Al Gore decides to run...
...pretty much set off my internal bullshit alarm immediately. Pegged that goddamn' needle solid. Didn't really even have to read on through the usual stale-assed ancient flimsy rationale with moss growing on the north side which they've been using since 2000 f'cripesake, and which was lame even then.
This is one of those times when I can totally understand why Tom Lehrer quit writing topical songs after Henry The K nabbed the Nobel Peace Prize. This is one of those moments when I feel that NBC should cancel Saturday Night Live immediately, because not one writer on that show -- especially since 1983 -- could possibly come up with stuff that boils down to:
"Virtual unknown with slight Progressive reputation is most qualified for the nomination, unless that same old overexposed, boring-assed, plastic, shopworn, corporate-cash mobbed-up hypocrite who didn't even have the cajones to take his own side in a fight decides to run again...except, of course that you all must realize how important it is to let go and let Hillary into your life.
Repeat after me:
Let Go, Let Hillary...
Let Go, Let Hillary...
We Want What We Don't Want...
We Want What We Don't Want..."
Posted by Mike Flugennock | May 27, 2007 11:35 AM
Posted on May 27, 2007 11:35
ms_xeno: Ah, Mythago. I've found particular joy in that one's kneejerk frothing reaction to any perceived general criticism of religion, too.
Mythago is by far the single most tribalist poster I've found as a regular on any blog left of Daily Kos, and that's saying a lot.
Posted by Djur | May 29, 2007 11:49 AM
Posted on May 29, 2007 11:49
Whoa. Djur. I knew about the knee-jerk pro-porn spiel, but not the knee-jerk pro-religion spiel. If we're talking about the same poster, it would totally fuel my hypothesis that folks like Wildmon and and Flynt and their respective followers are just flip sides of the exact same dog and pony show-- so far as women are concerned.
What got on my nerves the most about Mythago's swipes at Maia was that whole air of patronizing "don't-worry-your-silly-little-3rd-world-head-about-it, honey" tone from the former. I don't agree with everything Maia writes, but she's no fool. She deserves better than that from a so-called "sister." Even leaving behind the hypocrisy of telling people obviously impacted by our 3 billion pound gorilla-style foreign policies that they should just MYOB. As if we were managing to do that 'round this lovely planet. [scowl]
I'm too fucking old for this shit, I swear.
Posted by ms_xeno | May 29, 2007 11:11 PM
Posted on May 29, 2007 23:11